Captives

I am way too emotional. It’s not always a bad thing, but it definitely is right now.

It’s been one of those weeks where virtually nothing has gone the way I planned, everything is upsetting me and nothing anyone says makes me feel better. Little by little, I’ve begun feeling locked up inside of my own head. I don’t want to go into detail, but I do want to share the verse that I’ve been thinking about a lot today.

2 Corinthians 10: 5

We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

The thoughts of isolation and bitterness that I fail to take captive can turn me into a prisoner in my own home.

The passionate lust of younger days constantly left me feeling bound to men I didn’t love, and who didn’t love me.

Years of allowing anger and rash responses to wash over me resulted in a hard heart. A heart that was a slave to the phrase; “It’s not my fault, that’s just my personality. Deal with it.”

In my experience, the verse I posted above is typically used to reference thoughts that are sexually sinful in nature. I had that verse offered up repeatedly when I was struggling with pornography. While it’s certainly appropriate, I’m not really sure how it got such a singular association when it’s true of every hateful, hurting thought that we experience.

Are your thoughts lustful? Take them captive.

Are your thoughts bitter? Take them captive.

Anger?

Loneliness?

Deceit?

Pride?

It can all be taken captive and made obedient to Christ. All of it. He died for it. He alone has the right to be master over it. Not you. You can’t even make your thoughts obedient to the most noble goals you could dream up. You’ve proven this to be true every time that you’ve said something like; “I can unshackle myself from my sin. I can get my act together. I can work harder than my sin, outsmart it and become master over it. “

No, you can’t. I can’t. How many messy failures have we endured from those foolish efforts? I won’t bother to answer that.

Christ is the only master over sin and death. Take your thoughts captive, and give them over to Him.